Assembly bill would make town halls 24/7
Tinton Falls ordinance serves as model for proposed legislation
BY MELISSA KARSH Staff Writer

TINTON FALLS - The borough's proposed open government ordinance may become the model for state law aimed at promoting transparency in municipal government.

Borough Council President Michael Skudera, who drafted the borough's Electronic Public Records Ordinance, has collaborated with Assemblyman Richard Merkt (RMorris) on a state Assembly bill that would encourage municipalities to post more public records on town Web sites.

The two lawmakers discussed the proposed legislation at a press conference in Trenton Sept. 6. Skudera said later that Merkt would introduce the bill when the state Assembly is back in session.

Merkt's proposed legislation is based on Tinton Falls' Electronic Public Records Ordinance, which has not been voted on yet by Borough Council, but includes a list of minimum standards of what should be posted on a municipal Web site.

"Given the public's increased interest in 'transparency' in government, the efforts undertaken in Tinton Falls should serve as a model for other local governments," said Merkt in a press release. "This is a great - and I would add, low cost - way for government to leverage the power of the internet to give residents greater visibility into what their local government is doing."

Councilman Michael Skudera

Skudera said Merkt was impressed by his efforts and shared his aspiration to have more public information in the hands of citizens.

"This is something very positive for the towns and the citizens," said Skudera. "We're hoping that the towns look at this

and implement it. It will basically make town hall open 24 hours."

He continued that it would free up borough employees

for other tasks

and instead of continually

having to answer

phones and direct people

to the information, it will

already be accessible to them.

The next step for the Tinton Falls ordinance will be at the Sept. 18 borough council meeting when the council will award a nearly $20,000 contract to QScend Technologies to design the new borough Web site.

After the Web site is finished and each department becomes familiar with it, Skudera said the next step would be to pass the ordinance.

The funding for the re-design came from a $30,000 Comcast Corp. grant and it will take less than two months to develop the Web site, according to Skudera.

Skudera said each borough department head would be able to maintain their own department information "without technical or programming language skills required."

Included in Skudera's proposed ordinance is a provisions section that lists those items to be posted on a municipal home page. These include agendas/minutes, budgets, yearly audits, requests for open records, voter registration forms, common permits/licenses, competitive bidding opportunities,

municipal code book, ordinances for introduction and public notices.

Also outlined in the ordinance is a time requirement for the amount of time allotted for posting certain public information on the internet.

Some of the information on the bidding opportunities page would include the usual contact information, RFP (request for proposal) and type of service, as well as the winning bid, winning bid amount, appropriated amount, status of bid and reverse auctioning.

The finance page would include the budget, resolutions, amendments to the budget, fire budget, school budget, chart of tax rate and collection history from the prior 10 years, statutory debt condition, schedule of bond maturities, a chart of comparison municipal tax rates, census information and a chart of tax bill distribution.

In addition, the Web site would include the posting of employment opportunities, planning and zoning information, water quality reports, emergency information, garbage collection/town services, as well as an affordable housing page and a way to add a name to an affordable housing waiting list.

Skudera has said in the past that he looked at the Web sites for over 170 municipalities in New Jersey and discovered they were inadequate. Information such as minutes, agendas and budgets is very scarce, he said previously.

"I surveyed 175 Web sites and some of the smaller towns had better Web sites than larger cities … it's the initiative of the towns and the local officials to make this happen," said Skudera.